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AN UNDEVELOPED FUNCTION ' 

" History is past Politics, and Politics are present History.'' — Ei/warJA. Freeincin. 

" Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalized by history, and history fades into 

mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics." — .SVV Joint SeeUy. 

HERE are aphorisms from two writers, both justly distinguished 
in the field of modern historical research. Sententious ut- 
terances, they would probably, like most sententious utterances, go 
to pieces to a greater or less extent under the test of severe anal}-- 
sis. They will, however, now serve me sufficiently well as texts. 

That politics should find no place at its meetings is, I believe, 
the unwritten law of this Association ; and by politics I refer to the 
discussion of those questions of public conduct and polic}- for the 
time being uppermost in the mind of the community. Taking into 
consideration the character and purpose of our body, and the broad 
basis on which its somewhat loose membership rests, the rule may 
be salutary. But there are not many general propositions not open 
to debate ; and so I propose on this occasion to call this unwritten 
law of ours in question. While so doing, moreover, I shall dis- 
tinctly impinge upon it. 

Let us come at once to the point. May it not be possible that 
the unwritten law, perhaps it would be better to speak of it as the 
tacit understanding, I have referred to, admits of limitations and 
exceptions both useful and desirable ? Is it, after all, necessary, or 
from a point of large view even well-considered, thus to exclude 
from the list of topics to be discussed at meetings of historical asso- 
ciations, and especially of this Association, the problems at the time 
uppermost in men's thoughts ? Do we not, indeed, by so doing 
abdicate a useful public function, surrender an educational office ? 
Do we not practically admit that we cannot trust oursehes to dis- 

' President's address before the American Historical Association, December 27, igoi. 
VOL. vn. — 14. 203 



204 Charles Francis Adams 

cuss political issues in a scholarly and historical spirit? In one 
word, are not those composing a body of this sort under a species 
of obligation, in a community like ours, to contribute their share, 
from the point of view they occupy, to the better understanding of 
the questions in active political debate? This proposition, as I 
have said, I now propose to discuss ; and, in so doing, I shall, for 
purposes of illustration, draw freely on present practical politics, 
using as object lessons the issues now, or very recently, agitating 
the minds of not a few of those composing this audience, — indeed, I 
hope, of all. 

I start from a fundamental proposition. The American His- 
torical Association, like all other associations, whether similar 
in character or not, either exists for a purpose, or it had better 
cea.se to be. That purpose is, presumably, to do the best and 
most effective work in its power in the historical field. I then next, 
and with much confidence, submit that the standard of American 
political discussion is not now so high that its further elevation is 
either undesirable or impracticable. On the contrary, while, com- 
paratively speaking, it ranks well both in tone and conduct, yet its 
deficiencies are many and obvious. That, taken as a whole, it is of 
a lower grade now than formerly, I do not assert ; though I do 
assert, and propose presently to show, that in recent years it has 
been markedly lower than it was in some periods of the past, and 
periods within my own recollection. That, however, it is not so 
high as it should be, that it is by no manner of means ideal, all 
will, I think, admit. If so, that admission will sufifice for present 
purposes. 

My ne.xt contention is perhaps more open to dispute. It is a 
favorite theory now with a certain class of philosophers, somewhat 
inclined to the happy-go-lucky school, that in all things every com- 
munity gets about what it asks for and is qualified to appreciate. 
In political discussion — as in railroad or hotel service, and in liter- 
ature or religion — the supply as respects both quality and quantity 
responds with sufficient closeness to the demand. There is, how- 
ever, good reason for thinking that, with the American community 
or at least with some sections and elements thereof, this at best 
specious theory does not at the present time hold true. Our recent 
political debates have, I submit, been conducted on a level dis- 
tinctly below the intelligence of the constituency ; the participants 
in the debate have not been equal to the occasion offered them. 
Evidence of this is found in the absence of response. I think I am 
justified in the assertion that no recent political utterance has pro- 
duced a real echo, much less a reverberation ; and it would not 



3 



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Aji Undeveloped Function 205 

probably be rash to challenge an immediate reference to a single 
speech, or pointed expression even, which during the last presi- 
dential campaign, for instance, impressed itself on the public 
memory. That campaign, seen through the vista of a twelve- 
month, was, on the contrary, from beginning to end, with a single 
exception, creditable neither to the parties conducting it, nor to the 
audience to whose level it was presumably gauged. 

Perhaps, however, I can best illustrate what I have to say — 
enforce the lesson I would fain this evening teach — by approaching 
it through retrospect. So doing, also, if there is any skill in my 
treatment, I cannot well be otherwise than interesting; for I shall 
largely deal with events within the easy recollection of those yet 
in middle life. But, while those events are sufficiently removed 
from us to admit of the necessary perspective, having assumed their 
true proportions to what preceded and has followed, they have an 
advantage over the occurrences of a year ago ; for the controver- 
sial embers of 1900 may still be glowing in 1901, — though, I must 
.say, to me the ashes seem white and cold and dead enough. Still, 
I do not propose to go back to any very remote period, and I shall 
confine myself to my own recollection, speaking of that only of 
which I know, and in which 1 took part. My review will begin 
with the year 1856, — the year of my graduation, and that in which 
I cast my first vote ; also one in which a President was chosen, 
James Buchanan being the successful candidate. 

But it must be premised that each election does not represent a 
debate ; not infrequently it is merely a stage in a debate. It was 
so in 1856; it has been so several times since. Indeed, since 
1840, — the famous "Log Cabin and Hard Cider" campaign of 
" Coon-Skin Caps," and " Tippecanoe and Tyler too," probably 
the most humorous, not to say grotesque, episode in our whole 
national history, that in which the plane of discussion reached its 
lowest recorded level, — since 1840 there have been only six real 
debates, the average period of a debate being, therefore, ten years. 
These debates were, (i) that over Slavery, from 1844 to 1864 ; (2) 
that over Reconstruction, from 1868 to 1872 ; (3) Legal Tenders, 
or " Fiat Money," and Resumption of Specie Payments were the 
issues in 1876 and 1880; (4) the issue of 1888 and 1892 was over 
Protection and Free Trade ; (5) the debate over Bimetallism and 
the Demonetization of Silver occurred in 1896; and, finally, (6) 
Imperialism, as it is called, came to the front in 1900. Since 1856, 
therefore, the field of discussion has been wide and diversified, 
presenting several issues of great moment. Of necessity also the 
debates have assumed many and diverse aspects, ethical, ethnolog- 



2o6 . CJiarlcs Francis Adams 

ical, legal, military, economical, financial, historical. The last is 
that which interests us. 

The first of the debates I have enumerated, that involving the 
slavery issue, is now far removed. We can pass upon it histor- 
ically ; for the young man who threw his maiden vote in i860, 
when it came to its close, is now nearing his grand climacteric. 
Of all the debates in our national history that was the longest, 
the most elevated, the most momentous, and the best sustained. 
It looms up in memory ; it projects itself from history. As a 
whole, it was immensely creditable to the people, the community at 
large, for whose instruction it was conducted. It has left a litera- 
ture of its own, economical, legal, moral, political, imaginative. In 
fiction, it produced Uncle Tom's Cabin, still, if one can judge by the 
test of demand at the desks of our public libraries, one of the most 
popular books in the English tongue. In the law, it rose to the 
height of the Dred Scott decision ; and, while the rulings in that 
case laid down have since been reversed, it will not be denied that 
the discussion of constitutional principles involved, whether at the 
bar, in the halls of legislatures, in the columns of the press or on the 
rostrum, was intelligent, of an order extraordinarily high, and of a 
very sustained interest. It was to the utmost degree educational. 

So far as the historical aspect of that great debate is concerned. 
two things are to be specially noted. In the first place the moral 
and economical aspects predominated ; and, in the second place, 
what may be called the historical element as an influencing factor 
was then in its infancy. Neither in this country nor in Europe had 
that factor been organized, as it now is. The slavery debate was 
so long and intense that all the forces then existing were drawn 
into it. The pulpit, for instance, participated actively. The physi- 
ologist was much concerned over ethnological problems, trying to 
decide whether the African was a human being or an animal ; and, 
if the former, was he of the family of Cain. Thus all contributed to 
the discussion ; and yet I am unable to point out any distinctly his- 
torical contribution of a high order ; though, on both sides, the 
issue was discussed historically with intelligence and research. 
Especially was this the case in the arguments made before the 
courts and in the scriptural dissertations ; while on the political 
side, the speeches of Seward and Sumner, of Jefferson Davis and 
A. H. Stevens, leave little to be desired. The climax was, perhaps, 
reached in the memorable joint debate between Lincoln and Douglas, 
of which it is not too much to say the country was the auditory. 
The whole constituted a fit prologue to the great struggle which 
ensued. 



An Undeveloped Fitiietioii 207 

Beginning; in its closing stage, in December, 1853, when the 
measure repeaHng the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was introduced 
into the Senate of the United States, and closing in December, 
i860, with the passage of its Ordinance of Secession by South 
Carolina, this debate was continuous for seven years, covering two 
presidential elections, those of 1856 and i860. So far as I know, 
it was sill generis ; for it would, I fancy, be useless to look for any- 
thing with which to institute a comparison except in the history of 
Great Britain. Even there the discussion which preceded the pas- 
sage of the Reform Bill of 1832, or that which led up to the repeal 
of the Corn Laws in 1846, or, finally, the Irish Home Rule agita- 
tion between 1871 and 1892, one and all sink into insignificance 
beside it. Of the great slavery debate it may then in fine be said 
that, while the study of history and the lessons to be deduced from 
history contributed not much to it, it made history, and on history 
has left a permanent mark. 

Of the canvass of 1 864, from our point of view little need be said. 
There was in it no great field for the historical investigator, the 
issue then presented to the people being of a character altogether 
exceptional. The result depended less on argument than on the 
outcome of operations in the field. There was, I presume, during 
August and September of that year, a wordy debate, but the people 
were too intent on Sherman as he circumvented Atlanta, and on 
Sheridan as he sent Early whirling up the valley of the Shenandoah, 
to give much ear to it. Had this Association then been in existence, 
and devoted all its energies to elucidating the questions at issue, I 
cannot pretend to think it would perceptibly have affected the result. 

Nor was it greatly otherwise in the canvass of 1868. The 
country was then stirred to its very depths over the questions 
growing out of the war. The shattered Union was to be recon- 
structed ; the slave system was to be eradicated. These were 
great political problems ; problems as pressing as they were mo- 
mentous. For their proper solution it was above all else necessary 
that they should be approached in a calm, scholarly spirit, observant 
of the teachings of history. Never was there a greater occasion ; 
rarely has one been so completely lost. The assassination of Lin- 
coln silenced reason ; and to reason, and to reason only, does 
history make its appeal. The unfortunate personality of Andrew 
Johnson now intruded itself; and, almost at once, what should have 
been a calm debate degenerated into a furious wrangle. Looking 
back over the canvass of 1868, and excepting Gen. Grant's singularly 
felicitous closing of his brief letter of acceptance-; — " Let us have 
peace ! " — I think it would be difificult for any one to recall a single 



2o8 Charles Francis Adams 

utterance which produced any lasting impression. The name even 
of the candidate nominated in opposition to Grant is not readily re- 
called. In that canvass, as in the preceding one, I should say there 
was no room for the economist, the philosopher, or the historian. 
The country had, for the time being, cut loose from both principle 
and precedent. 

The debate over Reconstruction, begun in 1865, did not wear 
itself out until 1876. In no respect will it bear comparison with the 
debate over slavery which preceded it. Sufficiently momentous, it 
was less sustained, less thorough, far less judicial. Towards its 
close, moreover, as the country wearied, it was gravely complicated 
by a new issue ; for, in 1867, began that currency discussion destined 
to last in its various phases through the life -time of a generation. 
It thereafter entered, in greater or less degree, into no less than nine 
consecutive presidential elections, two of which, those of 1876 and 
1896, actually turned upon it. 

The currency debate presented three distinct phases : first, the 
proposition, broached in 1867, known as the greenback theory, 
under which the interest-bearing bonds of the United States, issued 
during the Rebellion, were to be paid at maturity in United States 
legal tender notes, bearing no interest at all. This somewhat amaz- 
ing proposition was speedily disposed of; for, early in 1S69, an act 
was passed declaring the bonds payable "in coin." But, as was 
sure to be the case, the so-called " Fiat Money " delusion had ob- 
tained a firm lodgment in the minds of a large part of the commu- 
nity, and to drive it out was the work of time. It assumed, too, all 
sorts of aspects. Dispelled in one form, it appeared in another. 
When, for instance, the act of i860 settled the question as respects 
the redemption of the bonds, the financial crisis of 1873 re-opened it 
by creating an almost irresistible popular demand for a government 
paper currency as a permanent substitute for specie. Finally, when 
seven years later this issue was put to rest by a return to specie 
payments, the over-production of silver, as compared with gold, 
already foreshadowed the rise of one of the most serious and far- 
reaching questions which have perplexed modern times. Thus as 
the ethical and legal issues which were the staples of public discus- 
sion from 1844 to 1872 were disposed of, or by degrees .settled 
themselves, a series of material questions arose, destined, even if at 
times in a somewhat languid way, to occupy public attention through 
thirty years. 

It is difficult to say what the dividing issue of 1876 really was. 
The country was then slowly recovering from the business prostra- 
tion which followed the collapse of 1S73. The issues involved in 



An Undeveloped Function 209 

Reconstruction, if not disposed of, were clearly worn out, and to 
them the country would not respond, turning impatiently from their 
further discussion. Those issues might now settle themselves, or 
go unsettled ; and, though that conclusion was reached thirty years 
ago, they are not settled yet. The living debate was over material 
questions, the cause of the prolonged business depression, and the 
remedy for it. The favorite specific was at first a recourse to paper 
money. The government printing-press was to be set in motion in 
place of the mint ; and even hard-money Democrats of the Jack- 
sonian school united with radical Republicans of the Reconstruc- 
tion period in guaranteeing a resultant prosperity. Again the 
teachings of history were ignored. What, it was contemptuously 
exclaimed in the Senate, do we care for " abroad " ! From this 
calamity the country had been saved by the veto of President 
Grant in 1874; and, the following year, an act was passed looking 
to the resumption of specie payments on the ist of January, 1879. 
Seventeen years of suspension were then to close. Over this 
measure the parties nominally joined issue in 1876. The Republi- 
cans, nominating Governor Hayes, of Ohio, demanded the fulfil- 
ment of the promise ; the Democrats, nominating Governor Tilden, 
of New York, insisted on the repeal of the law. Yet it was well 
understood that the candidate of the Democracy favored the policy 
of which the law in debate was the concrete expression. The con- 
test was thus in reality one between the " ins " and the " outs." 
We all remember how it resulted, and the terrible strain to which 
our machinery of government was in consequence subjected. In 
the wrangle which ensued the material and business interests of the 
country recuperated in a natural way, just as had repeatedly been 
the case before, and more than once since ; and the United States 
then entered on a new era of increased prosperity. This brought 
the paper money debate to a close. The issues presented had, in 
the course of events, settled themselves. 

But not the less for that, in the canvass of 1876 a field of great 
political usefulness was opened up to the historical investigator ; a 
field which, I submit, he failed adequately to develop. A public 
duty was left unperformed. It was in connection with what John 
Stuart Mill has in one of his Essays and Dissertations happily de- 
nominated "The Currency Juggle." From time immemorial to 
tamper with the established measures of value has been the constant 
practice of men of restless and unstable mind, honest or dishonest, 
whether rulers or aspirants to rule. History is replete with in- 
stances. To cite them was the function of the historical investi- 
gator ; to marshal them, and bring them to bear on the sophistries 



2 1 o Charles Francis Adams 

of the day was the business of the politician. A professorial dis- 
cussion in a meeting of such an organization as this would then have 
been much to the point ; and yet, curiously enough, a new historical 
precedent was about to be worked out. That was then to be done 
which had never been done before ; a country which had gone to 
the length the United States had gone in the direction of " Fiat 
Money " — two-thirds of the way to repudiation — was actually to re- 
trace its steps, and resume payments in specie at the former stand- 
ards of value. History would have been searched in vain for ? 
parallel e.xperience. 

The administration of President Hayes was curiously epochal. 
During it the so-called "carpet-bag governments" disappeared from 
the southern states ; the country resumed payments in specie ; and, 
on the 28th of February, 1878, Congress passed, over the veto of 
the President, an act renewing the coinage of silver dollars, the 
stoppage of which, five years before, constituted what was destined 
thereafter to be referred to as "the crime of 1873." This issue, 
however, matured slowly. Public men, having recourse to pallia- 
tives, temporized with it ; and, through four presidential elections 
it lay dormant, e.xcept in so far as parties pledged themselves to 
action calculated, in the well-nigh idiotic formula of politicians, to 
" do something for silver." The canvasses of 1880 and 1884 are, 
therefore, devoid of historical interest. The first turned largely on 
the tarift"; and yet, curiously enough, the single utterance in that 
debate which has left a mark on the public memory was the won- 
derful dictum of Gen. Hancock, the candidate of the defeated oppo- 
sition, that the tariff was a local issue, which, a number of years 
before, had e.xcited a good deal of interest in his native state of 
Pennsylvania. The gallant and picturesque soldier, metamorphosed 
into a political leader/;-^ hac vice, simply harked back to the" Log 
Cabin " and " Coon-skin " campaign of 1S40, when, a youth of six- 
teen, he was on his way to West Point. 

Nor is the recollection of the debate of 1884 much more mspir- 
ing. It was a lively contest enough, under Grover Cleveland and 
James G. Blaine as opposing candidates, a struggle between the 
"outs" to get in and the "ins" not to go out. But a single 
formula connected with it comes echoing down the corridors of 
time, the alliterative "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion" of the 
unfortunate Burchard. An interlude in the succession of great 
national debates, the canvass of 1884 called for no application of 
the lessons of history. 

That of 1888, presenting at last an issue, rose to the dignity of 
debate. In his annual message of the previous December, the 



An Undeveloped Function 2 1 1 

President, in disregard of all precedent, had confined his attention 
not only to the tariff, but to a single feature in the tariff, the duty 
on wool. In so doing he had, as the well-understood candidate of 
his party for re-election, flung down the gauntlet ; for, only three 
years before, the Republicans, in the presidential platform, had laid 
particular emphasis on "the importance of sheep industry" and 
" the danger threatening its future prosperity." They had thus 
pledged themselves to "do something" for wool, as well as for 
silver, and the President now struck at wool as "the tariff-arch 
keystone." But, while in this debate the economist came to the 
front, there was no pronounced call and, indeed, small opportunity 
for the historian. The silver issue was in abeyance ; the pension 
list and civil service were not calculated to incite to investigation; 
nor had history much to say on either topic. As to the sheep, now 
so much in evidence, the British wool-sack might afford a text 
suggestive of curious learning in connection with England's once 
greatest staple — how, for instance, as a protective measure it was 
by one Parliament solemnly ordained that the dead should be 
buried in woolens. But it will readily be admitted that the historic 
spirit does not kindle over tariff schedules. The lessons of experi- 
ence to be drawn from revenue tables appeal rather to the school 
of Adam Smith than to the disciples of Gibbon. 

Returning to the review of our national debates, we find that in 
1892 the shadow of coming events was plainly perceptible. The tariff 
issue had now lost itsold significance ; for the infant industries had 
developed into trade and legislation-compelling trusts. These were 
suggestive of new and, as yet, inchoate problems ; but to them the 
constituency was not prepared intelligently to address itself Pop- 
ulism was rife, with its crude and restless theories ; a crisis in the 
histoiy of the precious metals was clearly impending, with the out- 
come in doubt ; indiscriminate and unprecedented pension giving 
had reduced an overflowing exchequer to the verge of bankruptcy. 
The debate of 1892 accordingly dropped back to the politician's 
level, that of 1876, 1880 and 1884. In it there was nothing of any 
educational value ; nothing that history will dwell upon. The " ins " 
pointed with pride ; the " outs " sternly arraigned the " ins" ; while 
the student, whether of economics or history, there found small 
place and a listless audience. The memory of the canvass which re- 
sulted in the second administration of Cleveland is quite obliterated by 
the issues, altogether unforeseen, which the ensuing years precipitated. 

Of quite another character were the two canvasses of 1896 and 
1900. Still fresh in memory, the echoes of these have indeed not 
yet ceased to reverberate ; and I assert without hesitation that, not 



2 I 2 Charles Francis Adams 

since 1856 and i860 has this people passed through two sucli 
wholesome and educational experiences. In 1896 and in 1900, as 
in the debates of forty years previous, there was a place, and a large 
place, for the student, whether investigator or philosopher. Great 
problems, problems of law, of economics and ethics, problems in- 
volving peace and war, and the course of development in the oldest 
as in the newest civilizations, had to be discussed, on the way to a 
solution. That the prolonged debate running through those eight 
years was at all equal to the occasion, I do not think can be claimed. 
Even his most ardent admirers will hardly suggest that Mr. Bryan in 
1896 and 1 900 rose to the level reached by Lincolnforty years before, 
nor do the utterances of either Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Depevv or Mr. 
Hanna bear well a comparison with those of Seward, Trumbull and 
Sumner. And that this momentous, many-sided debate failed to 
rise to the proper height was due, I now unhesitatingly submit, to 
. the predominance in it of the political " boss," and the absence from 
it of the scholar. In it, those belonging to this Association, and to 
other associations similar in character to this, did not play their proper 
part ; they proved themselves unequal to the occasion. Indeed, in 
the whole wordy canvass of 1896 I now recall but two instances of 
the professor or philosopher distinctively taking the floor; but both of 
those were memorable. They imparted an elevation of tone to dis- 
cussion, immediately and distinctly perceptible, in the press and on 
the platform. I refer to the single utterance of Carl Schurz, before 
a small audience at Chicago, on the 5th of September, 1896, and to 
the subsequent publications of President Andrew D. White, in 
which, from his library at Ithaca, he drew freely on the stores of 
historical e.xperience in crushing refutation of demagogical campaign 
sophistry. Amid the petulant chattering of the political magpies 
it was refreshing to hear those clear-cut, incisive utterances, — calm, 
thoughtful, well-reasoned. I have been told that in its various 
forms of republication, no less than five millions, and some authori- 
ties say ten millions, of copies of that Chicago speech of Mr. Schurz 
were then put in circulation. It was indeed a masterly production, a 
production in which a high key-note was struck and sustained. 
But the suggestive and e.Ktremely encouraging fact in connection 
with it was the response it elicited. Delivering himself at the high- 
est level to which he could attain, Mr. Schurz was only on a level 
with his audience. To the political optimist that fact spoke vol- 
umes ; it revealed infinite possibilities. 

Twelve presidential canvasses, and si.x great national debates 
have thus been passed in rapid review. It is as if, in the earlier 



An Undeveloped Function 2 1 3 

history of the country we had run the gamut from Washington to 
Van Buren. Taken as a whole, viewed in gross and perspective, 
the retrospect leaves much to be desired. That the debates held in 
Ireland and P' ranee during the same time have been on a distinctly 
lower level, I at once concede. Those held in Great Britain and 
Germany have not been on a higher. Yet ours have at best been 
only relatively educational ; as a rule extremely partizan, they have 
been personal, often scurrilous, and intentionally deceptive. One 
fact is, however, salient. With the exception of the first, that of 
1856-1860, not one of the debates reviewed has left an utterance 
which, were it to die from human memory, would by posterity be 
accounted a loss. This, I am aware, is a sweeping allegation ; in 
itself almost an indictment. Yet with some confidence I challenge 
a denial. Those here are not as a rule in their first youth, and they 
have all of them been more or less students of history Let each 
pass in rapid mental review the presidential canvasses in which he 
has in any degree participated, and endeavor to recall a single utter- 
ance which has stood the test of time as marking a distinct addition 
to mankind's intellectual belongings, the classics of the race. It 
has been at best a babel of the commonplace. I do not believe one 
utterance can be named, for which a life of ten years will be pre- 
dicted. Such a record undeniably admits of improvement. Two 
questions then naturally suggest themselves : To what has this 
shortcoming been due ? Wherein lies the remedy for it ? 

The shortcoming, I submit, is in greatest part due to the fact 
that the work of discussion has been left almost wholly to the 
journalist and the politician, the professional journalist and the pro- 
fessional politician ; and, in the case of both there has in this country 
during the last forty years, been, so far as grasp of principle is con- 
cerned, a marked tendency to deterioration. Nor, I fancy, is the 
cause of this far to seek. It is found in the growth, increased com- 
plexity and irresistible power of organization as opposed to indi- 
viduality, in the parlance of the day it is the all-potency of the 
machine over the man, equally noticeable whether by that word 
" machine " we refer to the political organization or to the newspaper. 

The source of trouble being located in the tendency to excessive 
organization, it would seem natural that the counteracting agency 
should be looked for in an exactly opposite direction — that is, in 
the increased efficacy of individualism. Of this, I submit, it is not 
necessary to go far in search of indications. Take, for instance, the 
examples already referred to, of Mr. Schurz and President White, 
in the canvass of 1896, and suppose for a moment efforts such as 
theirs then were made more effective as resulting from the organ- 



2 1 4 Cliarles Francis Adams 

ized action of an association like this. Our platform at once be- 
comes a rostrum, and a rostrum from which a speaker of reputation 
and character is insured a wide hearing. His audience too is there 
to listen, and repeat. From such a rostrum, the observer, the pro- 
fessor, the student, be it of economy, of history, or of philosophy, 
might readily be brought into immediate contact with the issues of 
the day. So bringing him is but a step. He would appear, also, 
in his proper character and place, the scholar having his say in 
politics ; but always as a scholar, not as an office-holder or an 
aspirant for office. His appeal would be to intelligence and judg- 
ment, not to passion or self-interest, or even to patriotism. Con- 
gress has all along been but a clumsy recording machine of con- 
clusions worked out in the laboratory and machine-shop ; and yet the 
idea is still deeply seated in the minds of men otherwise intelligent 
that, to effect political results, it is necessary to hold office, or at 
least to be a politician and to be heard from the hustings. Is not 
the exact reverse more truly the case ? The situation may not be, 
indeed it certainly is not, as it should be ; it may be, I hold that it 
is, unfortunate that the scholar and investigator are finding them- 
selves more and more excluded from public life by the professional 
with an aptitude for the machine, but the result is none the less 
patent. On all the issues of real moment, — issues affecting any- 
thing more than a division of the spoils or the concession of some 
privilege of exaction from the community, it is the student, the man 
of affairs and the scientist who to-day, in last resort, closes debate 
and shapes public policy. His is the last word. How to organize 
and develop his means of influence is the question. 

*' Here's what should strike, could one handle it cunningly : 
Help the axe, give it a helve !" 

So far as the historian is concerned, this Association is, I sub- 
mit, the helve to the axe. 

Of this the presidential election which closed just a year ago 
affords an apt illustration, ready-at-hand. No better could be asked. 
What might then well have been ? The American Historical Asso- 
ciation, as I have already said, is composed of those who have felt 
a call for the investigation and treatment of historical problems. 
Its members, largely instructors in our advanced education, feel 
that keen interest in the issues of the day natural and proper in all 
good citizens, irrespective of calling. They want to contribute their 
share to discussion ; and, in that way, to influence results, so far as 
in them lies. From every conceivable point of view it is most de- 
sirable that they should have facilities for so doing. I hold, there- 
fore, that in the last presidential canvass, a special ineeting of this 



An Undeveloped Function 2 1 5 

Association, called to discuss the issues then pending, might well 
have tended to the better general and popular comprehension of 
those issues, and to the elevation of that debate. Conducted on 
academic principles and looking to no formal expression of results 
in any enunciated platform of principles, such a gathering would 
have exercised an influence, as perceptible as beneficial, in lifting 
the discussion up into the domain of philosophy and research. It 
would have brought the lessons of the past to bear on the questions 
of the day. In any event, it would certainly not have descended to 
that contemptible post ergo propter formula, which, on the one side 
or the other, has in every presidential canvass been the main staple 
of argument. 

What were the issues of the last presidential canvass ? On what 
questions did its debate turn? Three in number, they were I think 
singularly inviting to those historically minded. To the reflecting 
man the matter first in importance was what is known as " im- 
perialism," the problem forced upon our consideration by the out- 
come of the war with Spain. Next I should place the questions of 
public policy involved in the rapid agglomerations of capital, popu- 
larly denominated trusts. Finally the silver issue still lingered 
at the front, a legacy from the canvass of four years previous. 
The debate of 1900 is a thing of the past. Each of those issues 
can now be discussed, as it might well then have been discussed, in 
the pure historical spirit. Let us take them up in their inverse 
order. 

Historically speaking, I hold there were two distinct sides to 
the silver question ; and, moreover, on the face of the record, the 
advocates of bimetallism, as it was called, had in 1896 the weight 
of the argument wholly in their favor. In his very suggestive work 
entitled Democracy and Liberty, Mr. Lecky refers to the discovery 
of America as producing, among other far-reaching effects, one 
which he considers most momentous of all. To quote his words : 
" The produce of the American mines created, in the most extreme 
form ever known in Europe, the change which beyond all others 
affects most deeply and universally the material well-being of man : 
it revolutionized the value of the precious metals, and, in conse- 
quence, the price of all articles, the effects of all contracts, the bur- 
den of all debts." This was during the sixteenth century, the years 
following the great event of 1492. Again, the world went through 
a similar experience within our own memories, in consequence of 
the California and Australia gold-finds, between 1848 and 1852. 
These revolutions were due to natural causes, and came about grad- 
ually. They were also of a stimulating character. From the be- 



2 1 6 Charles Francis Adams 

ginning of modern commercial times, however, to the close of the 
last century, the exchanges of all civilized communities had been 
based on the precious metals ; and silver had been quite as much as 
gold a precious metal for monetary purposes. Shortly after 1870 
the policy of demonetizing silver was entered upon ; and, in 1873, 
the United States gave in its adhesion to that policy. Thereafter, 
in the great system of international exchanges, silver ceased to be 
counted a part of that specie reserve on which drafts were made. 
Thenceforth, the drain, as among the financial centers, was to be on 
gold alone. In the whole history of man no precedent for such a 
step was to be found. So far as the United States was concerned 
the basis, on which its complex and delicate financial fabric rested, 
was weakened by one-half; and the cheaper and more accessible 
metal, that to which the debtor would naturally have recourse in 
discharge of his obligations, was made unavailable. It could further 
be demonstrated that, without a complete readjustment of our cur- 
rencies and values, the world's accumulated stock and annual pro- 
duction of gold could not, as a monetary basis, be made to suffice 
for its needs. A continually recurring contest for gold among the 
great financial centers was inevitable. " A change which," in the 
language of Lecky, "beyond all others affects most deeply and 
universally the material well-being of man " had been unwittingly 
challenged. The only question was : would the unexpected occur ? 
Then, if it did occur, what might be anticipated ? Such was the 
silver issue, as it presented itself in 1896. On the facts, the weight 
of argument was clearly with the advocates of silver. 

Four years later, in 1900, the unexpected had occurred. As 
then resumed, the debate was replete with interest. The lessons of 
1492 and 1848 had a direct bearing on the present, and, in the light 
by them shed, the outcome could be forecast almost with certainty ; 
but it was a world-question. Japan, China, Hindostan entered into 
the problem, in which also both Americas were factors. It was a 
theme to inspire Burke, stretching back, as it did, to the Middle 
Ages, and involving the whole circling globe. Rarely has any 
subject called for more intelligent and comprehensive investigation ; 
rarely has one been more confused and befogged by a denser mis- 
information. The discoverer and scientist, moving hand in liand, 
had, during the remission of the debate, been getting in their work, 
and under the touch of their silent influence, the world's gold pro- 
duction rose by leaps and bounds. Less than ten millions ofounces 
in 1896, in 1S99 it had nearly touched fifteen millions ; and in money 
value, it alone then exceeded the combined value of the gold and 
silver production of the earlier period. What did this signify? 



An Undeveloped Functioii 2 1 7 

History was only repeating itself. Tiie experiences of the first half 
of the sixteenth century and the middle decennaries of the nine- 
teenth century were to be emphasized duringt he opening years of 
the twentieth. 

So much for the silver question and its possible treatment. In 
the discussion of 1900, the last word in the debate of 1896 re- 
mained to be uttered. A page in history, both memorable and in- 
structive, was to be turned. Next trusts — those vast aggregations 
of capital in the hands of private combinations, constituting prac- 
tical monopolies of whole branches of industry, and of commodities 
necessary to man. Was the world to be subject to taxation at the 
will of a moneyed syndicate ? The debate of a year ago over this 
issue, if debate it may be called, is still very recent. In it the lessons 
of history were effectually ignored ; and yet, if applied, they would 
have been sufficiently suggestive. The historian was as conspicu- 
ous for his absence as the demagogue was in evidence. 

The cry was against monopoly and the monopolist, a cry which, 
as it has been ringing through all recorded times, suggests for the 
historical investigator a wide and fruitful field. Curiously enough 
the first lesson to be derived from labor in that field is a paradox. 
Practically, so far as extortion is concerned, there is almost nothing 
in common between the old time monopoly and the modern trust. 
Of examples of the first, the record is monotonously full. Mere 
agents of the government, sometimes the favorites of the Crown, the 
whole machinery of the state has time out of mind been put at the 
service of monopolists to enable them to e.xact tribute from all. 
To the student of English history the names and misdeeds of Sir 
Richard Empson and Sir Giles Mompesson at once suggest them- 
selves ; while others more familiar with the drama recall Sir Giles 
Overreach, or that powerful scene in Ruy Bias in which the Spanish 
courtiers wrangle together, coming almost to blows, over a division 
among themselves of the right to extort. The old system still sur- 
vives. For example, in France to-day the manufacture and sale of 
salt is a government monopoly. A prime necessity of life, no 
person not specially authorized may engage in the production of 
salt, or import it. If a peasant woman, living on the sea-coast of 
Brittany or Normandy, endeavors to procure salt for her family by 
the slow process of evaporating a pailful of sea water in the sun, 
she is engaged in an illicit trade, and becomes amenable to law. 
Her salt will certainly, if found, be confiscated. So of improved 
pocket matches. In France, their manufacture is a government 
revenue monopoly. They are notoriously bad. Those made and 
sold in Great Britain are on the contrary noted for excellence. If, 



2 1 8 Charles P'rancis Af/anis 

however, a box of English matches is found in the pocket of a 
traveller passing from England to Erance, it is taken from him and 
the contents are destroyed at once ; indeed he is fortunate if he escapes 
the payment of a fine. This is monopoly ; the whole strength of a 
government being put forth to exact an artificial profit on the sale 
of a commodity in general use. There is an historical literature 
pertaining to the subject, a lamentation, and an ancient tale of 
wrong. 

The curious feature in the present discussion, that which in the 
mind of the student of things as opposed to words imparts a special 
interest to it, is that, while the trust or vast aggregation of capital 
and machinery of production in the hands of individuals intended to 
control competition is in fact the modern form of monopoly, it is 
in its methods and results the direct opposite of the old time 
monopoly ; for, whereas, the purpose and practice of that was to 
extort from all purchasers an artificial price for an inferior article 
through the suppression of competitors, the first law of its existence 
for the modern trust is, through economies and magnitude of pro- 
duction, to supply to all buyers a better article at a price so low 
that other producers are driven from the market. The ground of 
popular complaint against them is not that they exact an inordinate 
profit on what they sell, but that they sell so low that the small 
manufacturer or merchant is deprived of his trade. This distinction 
with a difference explains at once the wholly futile character of the 
politician's outcry against trusts. It is easy, for instance, to de- 
nounce from the platform the magnates of the Sugar Trust to a 
sympathizing audience ; and yet not one human being in that aud- 
ience, his sympathies to the contrary notwithstanding, will the next 
morning pay a fraction of a cent more per pound for his sugar, that 
by so doing he may help to keep alive some struggling manufac- 
turer who advertises that his product does not bear the trust stamp. 

As to the outcome of conflicts of this character history tells but 
one story. They can have but one result, a readjustment of indus- 
tries. A single familiar illustration will suffice. Any one who 
chooses to turn back to it, can read the story of the long conflict 
between the loom and the spindle. Formerly, and not so very far 
back, the distaff and spinning-wheel were to be seen in every house; 
homespun was the common wear. To-day the average man or 
woman has never seen a distaff, or heard the hum of a spinning- 
wheel. Ceasing long since to be a commodity, homespun would 
be sought for in vain. Yet the struggle between the loom of the 
manufacturing trust and the old dame's spinning-wheel was, literally, 
for the latter, a fight to the death ; for, in that case, the livelihood of 



An Undeveloped l-'unction 219 

the operator was at stake. Her time was worth absolutely nothing, 
except at the wheel ; she must needs work for any wage ; on it de- 
pended her bread. A vast domestic, industrial readjustment was 
involved ; one implying untold human suffering. The result was, 
however, never for an instant in doubt. The trust of that day was 
left in undisputed control of the field ; and it always must, and 
always will be, just so long as it supplies purchasers with a better 
article, at a lower price than they had to pay before. The process 
does not vary ; the only difference is that each succeeding readjust- 
ment is on a larger scale and more far-reaching in its effects. 

Such, stripped of its verbiage and appeals to sympathy, is the 
trust proposition. But the popular apprehension always has been, 
as it now is, that this supply of the better article at a lower price 
will continue only until the producer, the monopolist has secured a 
complete mastery of the situation. Capital, it is argued, is selfish 
and greedy, corporations are proverbially soulless and insatiable ; 
and, as soon as competition is eliminated, nature will assert itself. 
Prices will then be raised so as to assure inordinate gains ; and when, 
in consequence of such profits, fresh competitors enter the field, 
they will either be crushed out of existence by a temporary reduc- 
tion in price, or absorbed in the trust. 

All this has a plausible sound ; and of it as a theory of practical 
outcome the politician can be relied on to make the most. But on 
this head what has the historical investigator to say ? His will be 
the last word in that debate also ; his verdict will be final. The 
lessons bearing on this contention to be drawn from the record cover 
a wide field of both time and space ; they also silence discussion. 
They tend indisputably to show that the dangers depicted are imag- 
inary. The subject must, of course, be approached in an unpreju- 
diced spirit and studied in a large, comprehensive way. Permanent 
tendencies are to be dealt with ; and exceptional cases must be in- 
stanced, classified and allowed for. Attempts, more or less success- 
ful, at extortion in a confidence of mastery, can unquestionably be 
pointed out ; but, in the history of economical development, it is no 
less unquestionable that, on the large scale and in the long run, 
every new concentration has been followed by a permanent reduc- 
tion of price in the commodity affected thereby. The world's needs 
are continually supplied at a lower cost to the world. Again, the 
larger the concentration, the cheaper the product ; until now a new 
truth of the market place has become established and obtained gen- 
eral acceptance, a truth of the most far-reaching consequence, the 
truth that the largest returns are found in quick sales at small prof- 
its. To manage successfully one of those great and complex indus- 

voL. vu. — 15. 



» 
2 20 Charles Francis Adams 

trial combinations calls for exceptional administrative capacit}' in in- 
dividuals, for men of quick perception and masterful tempers. These 
men must be able correctly to read the lessons of experience, and, 
accepting the facts of the situation, they must find out how most 
exactly to adapt themselves to those facts. No theorist, be he 
politician or philosopher, appreciates so clearly as does the success- 
ful trust executive the fundamental laws of being of the interests 
they have in charge. They have good cause to know that under 
conditions now prevailing, competition is the sure corollary of the 
attempted abuse of control ; and, moreover, that the largest ultimate 
returns on capital, as well as the only real security from competition, 
are found not in the disposal of a small product at large profits, 
but in a large output at prices which encourage consumption. 
Throwing exceptional cases and temporary conditions out of con- 
sideration, as not affecting final results, the historical investigator 
will probably on this subject find himself much at variance with the 
political canvasser. That the last will get worsted in the argument 
hardly needs be said. 

Does history furnish any instance of a financial, an industrial or 
a commercial enterprise, — a bank, a factory, or an importing com- 
pany, — ever having been powerful enough long to regulate the 
price of any commodity regardless of competition, except when act- 
ing in harmony with and supported by governmental power ? Is 
not the monopolist practically impotent, unless he has the constable 
at his call ? To answer this question absolutely would be to deduce 
a law of the first importance from the general experience of man- 
kind. So doing would call for a far more careful examination tiian 
is now in my power to make, were it even within the scope of my 
ability ; but if my supposition prove correct, the corollary to be 
drawn therefrom is to us as a body politic and at just this juncture, 
one of the first and most far-reaching import. In such case, the 
modern American trust, also, so far as it enjoys any power as a 
monopoly, or admits of abuse as such, must depend for that power 
and the opportunity of abuse solely on governmental support and 
cooperation. Its citadel is then the custom house. The moment the 
United States revenue officer withdrew his support, the American 
monopolist would cease to monopolize, except in so far as he 
could defy competition by always supplying a better article at 
a price lower than any other producer in the whole world. And 
here, having deduced and formulated this law, the purely his- 
torical investigator would find himself trenching on the province 
of the economist. The so-called protective system would now 
be in question. Thus again, as so often before, the tariff would 



All Undeveloped function 2 2 i 

become the paramount issue. But the tariff would no longer 
stand in the popular mind as the beneficent protector of domes- 
tic enterprise ; it would, on the contrary, be closely associated 
with the idea of monopoly, it would be assailed as the Bastille of the 
monopolist. From the historical and economical points of view, 
however, the debate would not, because of that, undergo any dimi- 
nution of interest. Whatever the politician might in discussion as- 
sert, or the opportunist incorporate into legislation, we may rest as- 
sured that this issue will ultimately settle itself in accordance with 
those irresistible underlying influences which result in what we 
know as natural evolution. History is but the record of the ad- 
justment of mankind in the past to the outcome of those influences, 
moral, geological, industrial and climatic ; and, in this respect, when 
all is said and done, it is tolerably safe to predict that the future 
will present no features of novelty. If, then, we can measure cor- 
rectly the nature of the influences at work, experience furnishes 
the data from which the character, as well as the extent, of the im- 
pending readjustment may be surmised. For such a diagnosis the 
historian and economist are requisite. 

It remains to pass on to the third and last of the matters in de- 
bate during 1900, that known as imperialism. This was the really 
great issue before the American people then ; and it is the really 
great issue before them now. That issue, moreover, I with confi- 
dence submit, can be intelligently considered only from the historical 
standpoint. Indeed, unless approached through the avenues of 
human experience, it is not even at once apparent how the question, 
as it now confronts us, arose and injected itself into our political 
action ; and accordingly, it is in some quarters even currently 
assumed that it is there only fortuitously, a feature in the great 
chapter of accidents, a passing incident, which may well disappear 
as mysteriously and as suddenly as it came. Studied historically, 
I do not think this view of the situation will bear examination. On 
the contrary, I fancy even the most superficial investigator, if 
actuated in his inquiry by the true historical spirit, would soon 
reach the conclusion that the issue so recently forced upon us had 
been long in preparation, was logical and inevitable, and for our 
good or our evil must be decided, rightly or wrongly, on a large 
view of great and complex conditions. In other words, there may 
be reason to conclude that an inscrutable law of nature, at last in- 
volving us, has long been and now is evolving results. It is one 
more phase of natural evolution, working itself out, as in the case 
of Rome twenty-five centuries ago, through the survival and supre- 
, macy of the fittest. 



2 22 Charles Francis Adams 

I need hardly say, I feel myself now venturing on some danger- 
ous generalizations ; and yet I do not see how the American inves- 
tigator, who endeavors to draw his conclusions from history, can 
recoil from the venture. His deductions will probably be erroneous 
— indeed, they are sure to be so to some extent ; and, in making 
them, he is more than likely to betray a very considerable capacity 
in the line of superficiality. None the less, even if it be of small 
value, he is bound to offer what he has. If the seed he throws 
bears no fruit, it can do small harm. 

Mr. Leslie Stephen, in one of his essays, truly enough says : 
" The Catholic and the Protestant, the Conservative and the Radical, 
the Individualist and the Socialist, have equal facility in proving 
their own doctrines with arguments, which habitually begin, ' All 
history shows.' Printers should be instructed always to strike out 
that phrase as an erratum, and to substitute ' I choose to take for 
granted.' " And elsewhere the same writer lays it down as a 
general proposition that: "Arguments beginning 'all history 
shows' are always sophistical." ' What is by some known as the 
doctrine of manifest destiny is, I take it, identical with what others, 
more piously minded, refer to as the will, or call, of God. The 
Mohammedan and the modern Christian gospel-monger say " God 
clearly calls us " to this or that work ; and with a conscience per- 
fectly clear, they then proceed to rob, slay and oppress. In like 
manner, the political buccaneer and land-pirate proclaims that the 
possession of his neighbor's territory is rightfully his by manifest 
destiny. The philosophical politician next drugs the conscience of 
his fellowmen by declaring solemny that " all history shows " that 
might is right ; and with time, the court of last appeal, it must be 
admitted possession is nine points in the law's ten. It cannot be 
denied, also, that quite as many crimes have been perpetrated in the 
name of God and of manifest destiny as in that of liberty. That, at 
least, "all history shows." But, all the same, just as liberty is 
notwithstanding a good and desirable thing, so God does live and 
will, and there is something in manifest destiny. As applied to the 
development of the races inhabiting the earth it is, I take it, merely 
an unscientific form of speech ; the word now in vogue is evolution, 
the phrase " survival of the fittest." When all is said and done, 
that unreasoning instinct of a people which carries it forward in 
spite of and over theories to its manifest destiny, amid the despair- 
ing outcries and long-drawn protestations of theorists and ethical 
philosophers, is a very considerable factor in making history ; and, 
consequently one to be reckoned with. 

"^ Social /^i^his am/ Dii/ifs, Vol. I., p. 129; A}t A^no^tic^ s Apohjry, p. 260. • 



An Undeveloped Function 223 

In plain words then, and Mr. Stephen to the contrary notwith- 
standing, " all history shows " that every great, aggressive and mas- 
terful race tends at times irresistibly towards the practical assertion 
of its supremacy, usually at the cost of those not so well adapted 
to existing conditions. In his great work Mommsen formulates the 
law with a brutal directness distinctly Germanic : 

" By virtue of the law, that a people which has grown into a state 
absorbs its neighbours who are in political nonage, and a civilized people 
absorbs its neighbours who are in intellectual nonage — by virtue of this 
law, which is as universally valid and as much a law of nature as the law 
of gravity — the Italian nation (the only one in antiquity which was able 
to combine a superior political development and a superior civilization, 
though it presented the latter only in an imperfect and external manner) 
was entitled to reduce to subjection the Greek states of the East which 
were ripe for destruction, and to dispossess the peoples of lower grades 
of culture in the West — Libyans, Iberians, Celts, Germans — by means of 
its settlers ; just as England with equal right has in .^sia reduced to sub- 
jection a civilization of rival standing, but politically impotent, and in 
America and Australia has marked and ennobled and still continues to 
mark and ennoble, extensive barbarian countries with the impress of its 
nationality." ' 

Professor Von Hoist again states a corollary from the law thus 
laid down in terms scarcely less explicit, in connection with a well- 
known and much discussed act of foreign spoliation in our own 
comparatively recent history : " It is as easy to bid a ball that has 
flown from the mouth of the gun to stop in its flight, and return 
on its path, as to terminate a successful war of conquest by a vol- 
untary surrender of all conquests, because it has been found out 
that the spoil will be a source of dissension at home." ^ And then 
Von Hoist quotes a very significant as well as philosophical utter- 
ance of William H. Seward's, which a portion of our earnest pro- 
testants of to-day would do well to ponder : " I abhor war, as I 
detest slavery. I would not give one human life for all the conti- 
nents that remain to be annexed ; but I cannot exclude the convic- 
tion that the popular passion for territorial aggrandizement is irre- 
sistible. Prudence, justice, cowardice, may check it for a season, 
but it will gain strength by its subjugation. ... It behooves us 
then to qualify ourselves for our mission. We must dare our des- 
tiny." ' One more, and I have done with quotations. The last I 
just now commended to the thoughtful consideration of those clas- 
sified in the political nomenclature of the day as Anti-Imperialists. 
A most conscientious and high-minded class, possessed with the 
full courage of their convictions, the efforts of the Anti-Imperialists 

' History of Konu\ Book V., chap. 7. 

2 History of tlie United States, Vol. Ill,, p. 304. 

3 Works, Vol. III., p. 409. 



2 24 Cliarles Francis Adams 

will not fail, we and tliey may rest assured, to make themselves 
felt. They enter into the grand result. Nevertheless, for them 
also there is food for thought, perhaps for consolation, in this other 
general law, laid down in 1862 by Richard Cobden, than whose, in 
my judgment, the utterances of no English speaking man in the 
nineteenth centur_\' were more replete with shrewd sense expressed 
in plain, terse English : 

" From the moment the first shot is fired, or the first blow is struck, in 
a dispute, then farewell to all reason and argument ; you might as well 
attempt to reason with mad dogs as with men when they have begun to 
spill each other's blood in mortal combat. I was so convinced of the 
fact during the Crimean war, which, you know, I opposed, I was so con- 
vinced of the utter uselessness of raising one's voice in opposition to war 
when it has once begun, that I made up my mind that as long as I was 
in political life, should a war again break out between England and a 
great Power, I would never open my mouth upon the subject from the 
time the first gun was fired until the peace was made, because, when a 
war is once commenced, it will only be by the exhaustion of one party 
that a termination will be arrived at. If you look back at our history, 
what did eloquence, in the persons of Chatham or Burke, do to prevent 
a war w^ith our first American colonies? What did eloquence, in the 
persons of Fox and his friends, do to prevent the French revolution, or 
bring it to a close ? And there was a man who at the commencement of 
the Crimean war, in terms of eloquence, in power, and pathos, and argu- 
ment equal — in terms, I believe, fit to compare with anything that fell 
from the lips of Chatham and Burke — I mean your distinguished towns- 
man, my friend Mr. Bright — and what was his success? Why, they 
burnt him in effigy for his pains." 

Turning from the authorities, and the lessons by them deduced 
from the record called History, let us now consider the problem 
precipitated on the American people by the Spanish war of 1898. 
That question, — the burning political issue of the hour, — I propose 
here and now to discuss. I propose to discuss it, however, from 
the purely historical standpoint, and not at all in its moral or eco- 
nomical aspects. So far then as this question is concerned, the last 
presidential vote, that of 1900, settled nothing, except that the 
policy which had assumed a certain degree of form in the treaty of 
Paris should not be reversed. All else was left for debate, and 
ulterior settlement. Certain lessons, calculated greatly to influence 
the character of that settlement, can, I submit, now be most advan- 
tageously drawn from history. At formulating those lessons I pro- 
pose here to try my hand. 

The first and most important lesson is one which, in theory at 
least, is undisputed; though to live up to it practically calls for a 
courage of conviction not yet in evidence. That a dependency is 
not merely a possession, but a trust, a trust for the future, for itself 
and for humanity, is accepted by us in this debate as a postulate ; 



An Undeveloped Function 225 

accordingly, our dependencies are in no wise to be exploited for the 
general benefit of the alien owner, or that of individual components of 
that owner, but they are to be dealt with in a large and altruistic spirit 
with an unselfish view to their own utmost development, materially, 
morally and politically. And, through a process of negatives, 
"all history shows" that only when this course is hereafter wisely 
and consecutively pursued, should that blessed consummation ever 
be attained, will the dominating power itself derive the largest and 
truest benefit from its possessions. 

As yet no American of any character, much less of authority, 
has come forward to controvert this proposition. That it will be 
controverted, and attempts made by interested parties to sophisticate 
it away through the cunningly arranged display of exceptional cir- 
cumstances, can with safety be predicted. In this respect, to use a 
cant phrase, "we know how it is ourselves." We all remember, for 
instance, the unspeakable code of factitious morals and deceptive 
philosophy manufactured to order in these United States as a " Gos- 
pel of Niggerdom " less than half a century ago. Coming down 
to more I'ecent times, we can none of us yet have forgotten the 
wretched sophistry ignorantly resurrected from the French Revolu- 
tion and assignat days in glorification of " Fiat Money," and a 
business world emancipated at last from any heretofore accepted 
measures of value. The leopard, rest assured, has not changed its 
spots since either i860 or 1876. The " New Gospel " phase of the 
debate now on is, however, yet to develop itself. But, assuming 
the correctness of the proposition I have just formulated, a corol- 
lary follows from it. A formidable proposition, I state it without 
limitations, meaning to challenge contradiction, I submit that there is 
not an instance in all recorded history, from the earliest precedent to 
that now making, where a so-called inferior race or community has 
been elevated in its character, or made self-sustaining and self-gov- 
erning, or even put on the way to that result, through a condition of 
dependency or tutelage. I say " inferior race "; but, I fancy, I might 
state the proposition even more broadly. I might, without much 
danger, assert that the condition of dependency, even for commu- 
nities of the same race and blood, always exercises an emasculating 
and deteriorating influence. I would undertake, if called upon, to 
show also that this rule is invariable, — that, from the inherent and 
fundamental conditions of human nature it has known and can know 
no exceptions. This truth, also, I would demonstrate from well- 
nigh innumerable examples, that of our own colonial period among 
the number. In our case, it required a century to do away in our 
minds and hearts with our dependential traditions. The Civil War 



2 26 Charles Francis Adams 

and not what we call the Revolution, was our real war of Independ- 
ence. And yet in our time of dependency you will remember we 
were not emasculated into a resigned and even cheerful self-inca- 
pacity as the natural result of a kindly, paternal and protective 
policy ; but, as Burke with profound insight expressed it, with us 
the spirit of independence and self-support was fostered "through 
a wise and salutary neglect." But, for present purposes, all this is 
unnecessary, and could lead but to a poor display of commonplace 
learning. The problem to-day engaging the attention of the Amer- 
ican people is more limited. It relates solely to what are called 
" inferior races " ; those of the same race, or of cognate races, we as 
yet do not propose to hold in a condition of permanent depend- 
ency; those we absorb, or assimilate. Only those of "inferior 
race," the less developed or decadent, do we propose to hold in 
subjection, dealing with them, in theory at least, as a guardian deals 
with a family of wards. 

My proposition then broadens. If history teaches anything in 
this regard it is that race elevation, the capacity in a word for political 
self-support, cannot be imparted through tutelage. Moreover, the 
milder, the more paternal, kindly and protective the guardianship, 
the more emasculating it will prove. A " wise and salutary neglect " 
is the more beneficent policy ; for, with races as with individuals, a 
state of dependency breeds the spirit of dependency. Take Great 
l^ritain for instance. That people, working at it now consecutively 
through three whole centuries, after well-nigh innumerable experi- 
ences and as many costly blunders, Great Britain has, I say, de- 
\eloped a genius for dealing with dependencies, for the government 
of "inferior races"; a genius far in advance of anything the world 
has seen before. Yet my contention is that, to-day, after three 
rounded centuries of British rule, the Hindus, the natives of India, 
in spite of all material, industrial and educational improvements — 
roads, schools, justice and peace — are in igoo less capable of inde- 
pendent and ordered self-government, than they were in the year 
1600, the year when the East India Company was incorporated 
under a patent of Elizabeth. The native Indian dynasties, those 
natural to the Hindus, have disappeared ; accustomed to foreign 
rule the people have no rulers of their own, nor could they rule 
themselves. The rule of aliens has with Hindostan thus become a 
domestic necessity. Remove it — and the highest and most recent 
authorities declare it surely will some day be removed — chaos 
would inevitably ensue. What is true of India is true of Egypt. 
That, under British rule, Egypt is to-day in better material and po- 
litical case than ever before in its history, modern, biblical, hiero- 



Aji Undeveloped Funclion ■ 227 

glyphic or legendary, scarcely admits of dispute. Schools, roads, ir- 
rigation, law and order, and protection from attack, she has them all ; 

" But wliat avail the plough or sail, 
Or land or life, if freedom fail ?" 

The capacity for self-government is not acquired in that school. 

But of this England itself furnishes an example in its own his- 
tory, an example well-nigh forgotten. In fundamentals human 
nature is much the same now as twenty centuries back. During 
the first century of the present era, the Romans, acting in obedience 
to the law laid down by Mommsen — the law quoted by me in full, 
and the law of which Thomas Carlyle is the latest and most eloquent 
exponent, the law known as the Divine Right of the most Master- 
ful — acting in obedience to that law, the Romans in the year of 
Grace 43 crossed the British channel, overthrew the Celts and Gauls 
gathered in defence of what they mistakenly deemed their own, and, 
after reducing them to subjection, permanently occupied the land. 
They remained there four centuries, a hundred years longer than 
the English have been in Calcutta. During that period they intro- 
duced civilization, established Christianity, constructed roads, dwell- 
ings and fortifications. Materially, the condition of the country 
vastly improved. The Romans protected the inhabitants against 
their enemies ; also against themselves. During hundreds of years 
they benevolently assimilated them. Doubtless on the banks of the 
Tiber the inhabitants of what is now England were deemed incap- 
able of self-government. Probably they were ; unquestionably they 
became so. When the legions were at last withdrawn, the results 
of a kindly paternalism, secure protection and intelligent tutelage 
became apparent. The race was wholly emasculate. It cursed its 
independence ; it deplored its lost dependency. As the English 
historian now records the result — " They forgot how to fight for 
their country when they forgot how to govern it." ' 

Man is always in a hurry ; God never ! — is a familiar saying. 
Certainly, nature works with a discouraging indifference to genera- 
tions. Each passing race of reformers and regenerators does indis- 
putably love to witness some results of its efforts ; but, in the case 
of England, in consequence of the emasculation incident to tutelage, 
and dependency on a powerful, a benevolent and beneficent foreign 
rule, after that rule ended — as soon or late such rule always must 
end — throughout the lives of eighteen successive generations emas- 
culated England was over-run. At last, with some half dozen in- 
termediate rulers, the Normans succeeded the Romans. They 
were conquering masters ; but they domesticated themselves in the 

• Green, Short History of the English Peoph, Vol. I., p. g. 



228 • Charles Francis Adams 

British Islands, and in time assimilated the inhabitants thereof, 
Saxons, Picts and Celts, benevolently or otherwise. But, as nearly 
as the historian can fix it, it required eight hundred years of direst 
tribulation to educate the people of England out of that spirit of 
self-distrust and dependency into which they had been reduced by 
four centuries of paternalism, at once Roman and temporarily 
beneficent. Twelve centuries is certainly a discouraging term to 
which to look forward. But steam and electricity have since then 
been developed to a manifest quickening of results. Even the 
pace of nature was in the nineteenth century vastly accelerated. 

Briefly stated then, the historical deduction would seem to be 
somewhat as follows : where a race has in itself, whether im- 
planted there by nature or as the result of education, the elevating 
instinct and energy, the capacity of mastership, a state of depend- 
ency will tend to educate that capacity out of existence ; and the 
more beneficent, paternal and protecting the guardian power is, the 
more pernicious its influence becomes. In such cases, the course 
most beneficial in the end to the dependency, now as a century ago, 
would be that characterized by "a wise and salutary neglect." 
Where, however, a race is for any cause not possessed of the innate 
saving capacity, being stationary or decadent, a state of dependency, 
while it may improve material conditions, tends yet further to de- 
teriorate the spirit and to diminish the capacity of self-government ; 
if severe, it brutalizes ; if kindly, it enervates. History records no 
instance in which it develops and strengthens. 

Following yet further the teachings of experience, we are thus 
brought to a parting of the ways, a parting distinct, unmistakable. 
Heretofore the policy of the United States, as a nationality, has, so 
far as the so-called inferior races are concerned, been confined in its 
operation to the North American continent ; but, as a whole and in 
its large aspects, it has been well defined and consistent. We have 
proceeded on the theory that all government should in the end rest 
on the consent of the governed ; that any given people is competent 
to govern itself in some fashion, and that, in the long run, any 
fashion of self-imposed government works better results than will 
probably be worked by a government imposed from without. In 
other words, the American theory has been that, in the process of 
nature and looking to ultimate, perhaps remote, conditions, any 
given people, not admitting of assimilation, will best work out its 
destiny when left free to work it out in its own way. Moreover, so 
far as outside influence is concerned, it can, in the grand result, be 
more effectively exercised through example than by means of active 
intervention. Where we have not therefore forcibly absorbed into 



An Undeveloped Function 229 

our system foreign and inferior races or elements, and more or less 
completely assimilated them, we have, up to very recently, adopted 
and applied what may perhaps in homely speech best be described 
as a " Hands-off and Walk-alone " doctrine, relying in our policy 
towards others on the theory practiced at our private firesides, the 
theory that self-government results from example, and is self- 
taught. I have already quoted Richard Cobden in this connection ; 
I will quote him again. Referring, in 1 S64, to the British foreign 
policy, then by him as by us denounced, though by us now 
imitated, Cobden said: "I maintain that a man is best doing his 
duty at home in striving to extend the sphere of liberty, com- 
mercial, literary, political, religious, and in all directions ; for if he 
is working for liberty at home, he is working for the advancement 
of the principles of liberty all over the world." 

Mexico and Hayti afford striking illustrations of a long and 
rigid adherence to this policy on our part, and of the results of that 
adherence. Conquering and dismembering Mexico in 1847, we, in 
1848, left it to its own devices. So completely had the work of 
subjugation been done, that our representatives had actually to call 
into being a Mexican government with which to arrange terms of 
peace. With that simulacrum of a national authority we made a 
solemn treaty ; and, after so doing, left Mexico to work out its 
destiny, if it could, as it could. In spite of numerous domestic con- 
vulsions and much internal anarchy, from that day to this we have 
neither ourselves intervened in the internal affairs of our southern 
continental neighbor, nor long permitted such interference by others. 
To Mexico, we have said "Walk-alone"; to France, " Hands-off." 
The result we all know. It has gone far to justify our theory of 
the true path of- human advancement. Forty years is, in matters of 
race development, a short time. A period much too short to admit 
of drawing positive, or final, inferences. Dr. Holmes was once 
asked by an anxious mother when the education of a child should 
begin ; his prompt, if perhaps unexpected, reply was : " Not less 
than 250 years before it is born." To-day, and under existing 
conditions, Mexico, though republican in name and form only, is 
self-governing in reality. It is manifestly working its problem out 
in its own way. The statement carries with it implications hardly 
consistent with the might-is-right latter-day dispensation voiced by 
Mommsen and Carlyle. 

Hayti presents another case in point, with results far more trying 
to our theory. We have towards Hayti pursued exactly the policy 
pursued by us with Mexico. Not interfering ourselves in the in- 
ternal affairs of the island, we have not permitted interference by 



230 Charles Francis Adams 

others. For the condition of affairs prevaiUng in Hayti, occupied 
by an inferior race, apparently lapsing steadily toward barbarism, 
the United States is morally responsible. Acting on the law laid 
down in the extract I have given from the pages of Mommsen, we 
might at any time during the last quarter of a century have inter- 
vened in the name of humanity, and to the great temporary advan- 
tage of the inhabitants of the one region " where Black rules 
White." The United States, in pursuance of its theories, has ab- 
stained from so doing. It has abstained in the belief that, in the 
long run and grand result, the inhabitants of Hayti will best work 
out their problem, if left to work it out themselves. In any event, 
however, exceptional cases are the rocks on which sound principles 
come to wreck ; and, so far as the race of man on earth is con- 
cerned, it is better that Hayti should suffer self-caused misfortune 
for centuries, as did England before, than that a precedent should 
be created for the frequent violation of a great principle of natural 
development. Yet the case of Hayti is crucial. Persistently to 
apply our policy there evinces, it must be admitted, a robust faith 
in the wisdom of its universal application. The logical inference, 
so far as the Philippine Islands is concerned, is obvious. 

Historically speaking, those now referred to are the only two 
theories of a national policy to be pursued in dealing with the prac- 
tical dependencies, which challenge consideration, the American and 
the British. The others, whether ancient and abandoned, or mod- 
ern and in use, — Phoenician, Roman, Spanish, French, Dutch, Ger- 
man or Russian, — may be dismissed from the discussion. They 
none of them ever did, nor do any of them now, look to an altru- 
istic result. In all, the dependency is confessedly exploited on 
business principles, with an eye to the trade development of the 
alien proprietor. Setting these aside, there remain only the Amer- 
ican, or "Walk-alone and Hands-off" theory; and the British, or 
"Ward in Chancery" theory. The first is exemplified in Mexico 
and Hayti ; the last in Hindostan and Egypt. The question now 
in debate for the United States may, therefore, be concisely stated 
thus: taking the Philippine Islands as a subject for treatment, and 
the ultimate elevation of the inhabitants of those islands to self- 
government as the end in view, which is the policy best calculated to 
lead to the result desired, — the traditional and distinctively American 
system, as exemplified in the cases of Mexico and Hayti, or the modern 
and improved British system, to be studied in Hindostan and Egypt ? 

Subject to limitations of time and space I have now passed in 
review the great political debates which have occupied the attention 



An Undeveloped Function 231 

of the American public during the last half century. I have en- 
deavored to call attention to the plane on which those debates have 
been conducted, and to the noticeable absence from them of a 
scholarly spirit. The judicial temper and the patience necessary to 
any thorough investigation have in them, I submit, been conspicu- 
ously lacking. Then, starting from the point of view peculiar to 
this Association, I have examined the issues presented to the 
country in the last presidential canvass, and, for purposes of illustra- 
tion, I have discussed them, always in a purely historical temper. 

While the result of my experiment is for others to pass upon, 
my own judgment is clear and decided. I hold that the time has 
now come when organizations such as this of ours, instead of, as 
heretofore, scrupulously standing aloof from the political debate, 
are under obligation to participate in it. As citizens, we most as- 
suredly should, in so far as we may properly so do, contribute to 
results, whether immediate, or more or less remote. As scholars 
and students, the conclusions we have to present should be deserv- 
ing of thoughtful consideration. The historical point of view more- 
over, is, politically, an important point of view ; for only when ap- 
proached historically, by one looking before as well as after, can 
any issue be understood in its manifold relations with a complex 
civilization. Indeed, the moral point of view can in its importance 
alone compare with the historical. The economical, vital as it un- 
questionably often is, comes much lower in the scale ; for, while an 
approach through both these avenues is not infrequently necessary 
to the intelligent comprehension of questions of a certain class, such, 
for instance, as the tariff or currency, it is very noticeable that, 
though many issues present themselves, slavery or imperialism for 
example, into which economical considerations do not enter as con- 
trolling factors, there is scarcely any matter of political debate which 
does not to some extent at least have to be discussed historically. 
Still, though our retrospect has proved this to be the case, the 
scarcely less significant fact also appears that not more than one 
presidential canvass in two involves any real issue at all, moral or 
economical. Of the last twelve elections, covering the half century, 
six were mere struggles for political control ; and so far as can now 
be seen, the course of subsequent events would have been in no 
material respect other than it was whichever party prevailed. 
Judging by experience, therefore, in only one future canvass out of 
two will any occasion arise for a careful historical presentation of 
facts. The investigator will not be called upon ; and, if he rises to 
take part in the discussion, he will do no harm for the excellent 
reason that no one will listen to him. In the other of each two 



232 Charles Francis Adams 

canvasses it is not so. There is then apt to be a real debate over 
a paramount issue ; and, in all such, the strong search-light of ex- 
perience should be thrown, clearly and fully, over the road we are 
called upon to traverse. In every such case, the presentation, pro- 
vided always it be made in the true historical spirit, should by no 
means be of one side only. On the contrary, every phase of the 
record should have its advocate ; every plausible lesson should be 
drawn. The facts are many, complicated and open to a varied con- 
struction ; and it is only through the clash of opposing views that 
they can be reduced to comparative system, and compelled to yield 
their lessons for guidance. 

As I have also, more than once already, observed, this Associa- 
tion is largely made up of those occupying the chairs of instruction 
in our seminaries of the higher education. From their lecture 
rooms the discussion of current political issues is of necessity ex- 
cluded. There it is manifestly out of place. Others here are 
scholars for whom no place exists on the political platform. Still 
others are historical investigators and writers, interested only inci- 
dentally in political discussion. Finally some are merely public- 
spirited citizens, on whom the oratory of the stump palls. They 
crave discussion of another order. They are the men whose faces 
are seen only at those gatherings which some one eminent for 
thought or in character is invited to address. To all such, the sug- 
gestion I now make cannot but be grateful. It is that, in future, this 
Association, as such, shall so arrange its meetings that one at least 
shall be held in the month of July preceding each presidential elec- 
tion. The issues of that election will then have been presented, 
and the opposing candidates named. It should be understood that 
the meeting is held for the purpose of discussing those issues from 
the historical point of view, and in their historical connection. Ab- 
solute freedom of debate should be insisted on, and the participa- 
tion of those best qualified to deal with the particular class of 
problems under discussion, should be solicited. Such authorities, 
speaking from so lofty a rostrum to a select audience of apprecia- 
tive men and women could, I confidently submit, hardly fail to 
elevate the standard of discussion, bringing the calm lessons of 
history to bear on the angry wrangles and distorted presentations 
of those whose chief, if not only, aim is a mere party supremacy. 

Charles Francis Adams. 



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